Wednesday, July 29, 2009

This past weekend took me to what felt like fifty thousand miles away from Cape Town, to a little town called Burgersdorp. If you were to reach down to grab a handful of biltong, for just one second, you’d drive right pass it.

As a child, Burgersdorp was a marvellous place. The rolling hills, never-ending veld and plethora of nooks and crannies set us off on new adventures everyday. In later years, when teenage angst set in, all the rules of the teen handbook deemed it completely uncool – hence my parents dragging us there at gunpoint, gagged and bound.

But it was only when a certain level of maturity set in that I learnt to appreciate Burgersdorp – the unique, slow accent of its inhabitants, the harsh and untainted beauty of its landscape and its complete disregard for the outside world – it was and still is something quite special.

On Saturday afternoon as I stood at the little church on the hill, the setting sun turning the dusty streets to gold, I wondered if I’d ever return - now that she was gone.